I’m just going to sit back and watch this one either:

a.) Fly, or b.) Die.

Either way, this should be an entertaining post. You realize Adrian, that for all your talk of Intelligent Design not belonging to Graphic Design discussions, that you were one to introduce it to your own.

Nate, why do I get the impression that you are hoping for b? Read my post again, and you will notice that it isn’t an invitation to talk about ID vs evolution. The topic is whether or not that debate (or any political debate) should take place in the context of graphic design. That is a much less risky (and probably more boring) topic.

I’d tend to agree with not making this blog about debating evolution vs. intelligent design. However, I have a hard time when I hear statements like, “We are professional graphic designers who have dedicated our lives to design, not politics.”

I have a hard time, because we as designers have shown a desire and ability to learn about business and marketing. We’ve evolved into consultants through growth, study and pursuit of expertise that goes well beyond what the general public think of when they hear “designer.” My fear with Adrian’s statement, is that it would be taken too far and be interpreted that design has nothing to offer a political debate. Designers should be encouraged to enter into these new fields of discussion. We need designers that are developing dialogues with scientists, politicians, educators, medical professionals, just as we have initiated discussions with business leaders.

Designers that have taken on debates with experts in other fields (ie. medicine, psychology, politics), have had great impact. If we fail to encourage those designers courageous enough to engage in those dialogues, we relegate design to continue playing the role it currently plays in society… which is all-to-often servant to consumerism and irresponsibility.

I believe, design may have something to say to science. If science is only influenced or questioned by scientists, then we are all in deep trouble. That’s what is interesting about this debate over intelligent design. It kind of challenges the value of “scientific” thought. In design, I often am frustrated with “scientific” research that eliminates the human, the pragmatic, the instinct/humanity of the designer (and viewer). I question just why in our culture, we hold “scientific” thought in such a valuable place. Certainly it is valuable, but it doesn’t add up to real life. Just like “scientific” research of communication and design doesn’t always add up to good communication or design. It might be that unscientific methods (more natural in design) offer greater aid in developing real life settings. We can still learn and improve communication through “scientific” research, but it doesn’t add up to reality.

So I feel for those in the science field that are now having to deal with, commentary and skepticism by those from outside their field (I recognize that many who are holding an “intelligent design” perspective are from within the scientific community). This may be a shocking, new, and maybe refreshing experience for many in the community.

It reminds me of what design calls, “clients” and “audience.” Both are necessary and offer valuable “expertise” to the design process. And as a designer I recognize that their input always has the potential to improve the design. They aren’t pests in the process of design, they are co-designers with expertise that I don’t have. I hope those without “design” knowledge give me feedback on my designs, because that’s when I learn and change and revisit design. This debate may have the same potential within the scientific community. Maybe we’ll walk away with a scientific community that is developing greater responsibility, practicallity, and awareness.

“A political agenda can only lessen the impact of our design discussion.”

I can’t speak for all of the Design Observer partners, but I am proud of the way many of our posts seek to engage design into contemporary culture and politics. The goal is not to pontificate, but to expand the discussion of design beyond brandspeak.

Every political campaign is designed, and every message put out by our political parties is a communication put through a design lens. Are these not worthy of analysis, commentary and criticism by designers?

Every reader of this site should read read Milton Glaser’s outstanding essay, “Designer/Citizen,” a manifesto for designers to realize that they are citizens too, and that design is a means of political engagement with the future of our country.

http://voice.aiga.org/content.cfm?ContentAlias=%5Fgetfullarticle&aid=1279239

Design Observer has no political agenda. It has many contributors with various political insights and points-of-view who seek to occasionally engage these issues.

To take politics off the table at Be A Design Group is fine. To critique others for engaging in occasional discussions of politics, however, is to suggest that design has no place in politics, or in the larger life of the society in which we live.

It’s funny. Because, when I read your comments. I doesn’t sound like to want to be non-partisan at all. It just sounds like you disagree with their politics.

Design Observer, or any blog isn’t sells itself as an Independent news-source, so for you to critcise them for not being so is wrong.

They offer a certain type of editoral, and you’re under no obligation to read it.

i Think that “Designers” do have a bit to say about the debate because they see the world a little differently. A normal person walk’s down the street and see’s a poster and thinks, ohh i want to eat that or buy that, and Designers say ohh i like that “ligature” or be amazed at how long it would have taken the designer to do that, or some other minute detail that goes over that average person’s head.

So if your debating “Intelligent Design vs Evolution” i think we have some authority in the debate, because know what it means to design something.

me as a designer i can’t possibly believe how anything so intricate, vast, beautiful & well thought out as “the Universe” could have just happened over millions of years ?!

do add campaigns just happen in a big bang ?!, do idea’s develop by just putting them in a sheet of paper and leaving them there for a few million years ?! or are there huge amounts of time and energy gone in to know there audience, what there selling, how to simplify it so people can understand it quickly, where too put your design, how to make it easy on your eye etc. do you not think of how many seconds you have to communicate something on a poster to grap there attention communicate accordingly, and all the other thing’s that go into design.

so that’s why i think Designer could debate it. i think Doctors should to, they know how complex the human body is, or environmentalists, they know how hard it is to make seasons work, and plants grow etc. what gives scientist’s ALL authority ?! (i don’t mean to say Scientist’s are bad by the way)

peace *sjb

I think if we’re going to have this debate, we also need to talk about the difference between “evolution” and “Evolution”.

Small “e” evolution, pertaining to “survival of the fittest” and dominant v. recessive genes and a species’ ability to adjust to environment over many generations, is impossible to refute.

Evolution, the idea that this big, beautiful world in which we live came from scratch and that everything that shares our air is the sum of a protozoa plus a couple billion years, is a lot harder for me to swallow.